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James Redpath to Walt Whitman, 5 October 1886

About This Item

  • Title: James Redpath to Walt Whitman, 5 October 1886
  • Date: October 5, 1886
  • Creator(s): James Redpath
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03292
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman Stefan Schöberlein Ian Faith Kyle Barton Nicole Gray
  • Cite this page: Redpath, James. "James Redpath to Walt Whitman, 5 October 1886." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 09 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.03292.xml (TEI)
 loc.03292.001_large.jpg see notes Aug 26 & 30, '88 ALL LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS RELATING TO EDITORIAL BUSINESS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED  
 "EDITOR NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,  
 NEW YORK CITY."  
  THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, 30 LAFAYETTE PLACE. ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. [DICTATED.] NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 5th 1886. Walt Whitman, Esq., Camden, N.J. My Dear Friend:

The syndicate is dissolved. Mr. Rice1 furnishes articles for the Star only. The price of your article2 puts it outside of any possible use for it in that paper, as the highest price is $10 per thousand. Just wait a few days, however, and I will read it and see if it will not do for the North American. Your Burns article will be, I expect, in the November number.3

Very truly yours, Jas​ Redpath  loc.03292.002_large.jpg Redpath

Correspondent:
James Redpath (1833–1891), an antislavery activist, journalist, and longtime friend of Whitman, was the author of The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860), a correspondent for the New York Tribune during the war, and the originator of the "Lyceum" lectures. He met Whitman in Boston in 1860, and he remained an enthusiastic admirer; see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, January 4, 1889. He concluded his first letter to Whitman on June 25, 1860: "I love you, Walt! A conquering Brigade will ere long march to the music of your barbaric jawp." Redpath became managing editor of The North American Review in 1886. See also Charles F. Horner, The Life of James Redpath and the Development of the Modern Lyceum, (New York: Barse & Hopkins, 1926); John R. McKivigan, Forgotten Firebrand: James Redpath and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); and J.R. LeMaster, "Redpath, James [1833–1891]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. Charles Allen Thorndike Rice (1851–1889) was a journalist and edited and published the North American Review in New York from 1876 until his death. His Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (1888) was published by The North American Review Publishing Company. [back]
  • 2. After Harper's had rejected Whitman's "Some War Memoranda," Whitman submitted it to Redpath, and it appeared in the North American Review in January 1887. Whitman received $60 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). [back]
  • 3. "Robert Buns as Poet and Person" appeared in the North American Review in November 1886. [back]
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